The Seal of the Confessional is a principle within Anglicanism which protects the words spoken during confession. Confession has certain censures on disclosure as there is an understanding among the clergy that there is an inviolable confidence between the individual priest and the penitent. This principle should not be confused with the rarer practice of lay confession, nor with the public confession of sins which is an element of most eucharistic liturgies throughout the Anglican Communion. The "Seal of the Confessional" refers specifically to the private confession of sins by an individual, in the presence of a priest, the form of which is regulated by the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and later liturgical sources. Historical position To the English Reformation In the Decretum of Gratian who compiled the edicts of previous councils and the principles of Church law which he published about 1151, we find the following declaration of the law as to the seal of confession: - and he goes on to say that the violator of this law should be made a lifelong, ignominious wanderer. Canon 21 of the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215), binding on the whole Church, laid down the obligation of secrecy in the following words: Notably, neither this canon nor the law of the Decretum purports to enact for the first time the secrecy of confession. The great fifteenth century English canonist William Lyndwood speaks of two reasons why a priest is bound to keep secret a confession, the first being on account of the sacrament because it is almost (quasi) of the essence of the sacrament to keep secret the confession. Henry VIII and the English Reformation The whole system of spiritual jurisdiction and the administration of canon law in England was transformed by the advent of the English Reformation. The reign of King Henry VIII saw the advent of an independent Church of England, constituted with the king as supreme head. The Statute of the Six Articles, passed in 1540, declared that "auricular confession is expedient and necessary to be retained and continued, used and frequented in the Church of God". Therefore, there is no reason to think that the Seal of Confession would not have been observed in the Church of England. Canon 113 Historically, the only occasion in which the confidentiality of a confession was imposed as a duty by the Church of England seems to have been